[Ron] I think what Arlo was getting at was that society is a collection of individuals.
[Arlo] I want to be clear here, Ron, and this is not what I was getting at. The "individual" and "society" are mutually dialectic. The mind, the "self" is a social phenomenon. It derives from the confluence of unique, proprietary experience and the assimilation of a collective consciousness. It does NOT originate out of "nature" or "the world of objects", only to then form societies. [Ron] Individuals who speak the same language share similar ideas follow similar rules each individual having the power to influence the way the other individuals think and act. [Arlo] Individuals do not share similar ideas, we ARE these shared ideas along with our unique experiences. It is confluence of these two things that create the "self". Our voices are the appropriated dialogue of our culture resonating with the unique experiences derived from our biological separateness. This is where the concepts of "agency" and "structure" break away from their traditional use, and become mutually enabling. "Agency" does not fight against structure, agency derives from structure. But at the same time, structure derives from acts of agency. The other thing to remember is that it is not individual v. individual in coercing "free agents" to act or think a certain way. When Pirsig says "our intellectual description of nature is always culturally derived", he is pointing out that seeing and not-seeing, or how sand is sorted, the entire way we order our thoughts is derived from the language habits and customs of the culture. "We are suspended in language", as Pirsig quoted Bohr. And this is not a bad thing! Language does not blind us, it enables us to see. What we have to remember is that this sight, however, is not "objective", but structured. Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
